Extending
Benefits

UC Regents Are Scheduled to Consider Domestic
Partners Issue in September

by
Fernando Quintero

Economics Professor Kenneth Train and his partner, John Martin, have
been together for 22 years.

Their finances are completely intertwined, with their assets held jointly
and their incomes combined to cover their expenses.

They share a lovely Victorian home on a hill high above the hustle and
bustle of San Francisco's Castro District.

Train and Martin are not unlike any other loving, committed couple-except
for one thing: they are of the same gender.

It is this one fact that keeps Martin from having access to Train's health
and retirement benefits.

"Berkeley has been a big part of my life, and I absolutely love
working here," said Train.

"Extending benefits to my partner would make me feel even more a
part of the Berkeley family."

After years of efforts to extend employees' benefits to domestic partners
by mostly gay and lesbian activists from all nine UC campuses, the Board
of Regents finally decided to put the item up for discussion at their July
17 meeting in San Francisco.

Regent Charlie Soderquist said the discussion could lead to a vote on
the issue of domestic partner benefits as early as this fall.

"I think people are getting pretty tired of hearing 'we're almost
there.'"

Gay, lesbian and bisexual faculty and staff members have sought health
and other benefits for their partners since the late '80s when many major
corporations and municipalities began extending employee benefits to domestic
partners.

The Academic Council recommended in April 1994 that health, pension and
other benefits be extended to same-sex partners of UC employees.

At the July meeting, following testimony from UC employees, most of whom
have been in relationships for at least a decade and university employees
for an equal amount of time, several regents expressed support for domestic
partner benefits.

In addition to same-sex couples, domestic partner benefits would also
be considered for unmarried couples of the opposite sex.

Regent Ward Connerly, who led the campaign to ban race and gender from
UC admissions considerations, was the most vocal supporter of domestic partner
benefits at the July meeting.

"It boils down to being treated like you'd want to be treated. I don't
know how we can treat one group of employees differently because of their
sexual orientation," he said. "We've talked about a hostile environment
in the context of race and ethnicity. What can be more hostile than not
being given the same benefits as others? My own preference is that we go
the route of symmetry."

Regent Stephen Nakashima said he opposes domestic partner benefits because
gay and lesbians "choose their lifestyle. It's a matter of choice by
the individual. We can't give money away simply because someone chooses
a certain lifestyle."

Supporters of domestic partner benefits say the discussion should focus
on economics, not morality.

Several top universities, including six of the eight peer universities
used for salary comparisons, offer health benefits to same-sex domestic
partners including Stanford, Harvard, Yale, MIT and the University of Michigan.

"It is simply not ethical or just for a major university to continue
to stand for discrimination against its employees based solely on sexual
orientation," said Rose Maly, a professor of family medicine at UCLA's
School of Medicine.

"Nor is it in the university's best interest to discriminate in
this way, if it wants to attract and retain the best and brightest faculty
and staff," said Maly, who lost her partner of 11 years to breast cancer
after battling to secure health insurance for her.

Vice Chancellor and Provost Carol T. Christ said the university's competitive
position is compromised by the current policy.

"I have been closely involved with faculty recruitment over a period
of eight years. Over this period, prospective faculty have been raising
the question of domestic partner benefits with increasing frequency,"
she said.

"We have always been proud of the quality of our benefits package
as an incentive to choose the University of California. That benefits package
is now missing an important competitive element in its lack of domestic
partner provisions."

According to estimates from the Office of the President, costs could
range from $1.2 million a year to $4.9 systemwide for health benefits for
same-sex couples. Adding the cost of covering heterosexual partnerships,
the total would range from $9.9 million to $19.8 million.

For retirement benefits, yearly costs would range from $1.9 million to
$3.8 million for same-sex couples only, and $3.8 million to $6.6 million
for both homosexual and heterosexual partners.

Train, chair of the Center for Regulatory Policy at Berkeley who has
taught on campus for 15 years, said the extension of benefits to his partner
would "greatly solve a dilemma that John and I have faced for our entire
professional years."

As a self-employed professional, Martin, a clinical psychologist in private
practice, has found it "exceedingly difficult and, in fact, impossible
to have decent health insurance," Train said.

Martin is in excellent health. He has never had a major illness. And
his HIV status is negative.

"The problem is that policies available to self employed people
are uniformly poor," said Train. "The worst part of the policies
for self employed people is that routinely, after a few years, the policy
is canceled or the coverage is drastically reduced. If the university were
to extend benefits to domestic partners, then our problems in this area
would be solved."

Train added that retirement benefits creates another issue of disparity.
In the event of his death, Train's pension would continue to his partner
at a rate significantly less than if the couple were married.

"I feel it is unfair that my partner and I would receive less retirement
pay from my years of working than would otherwise comparable married employees."

In addition, since they are not married, Train's social security pension
would not extend to his partner.